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R
richardesignerUK
Inspiring
January 11, 2026
Question

Bug when changing text colour with overprint stroke on.

  • January 11, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 368 views

I've just been doing some artwork in Illustrator and it has now developed this annoying bug. I had a piece of text that was in Pantone 419C ink with a coloured overprint keyline. I needed to change the text from Pantone 419C to 100% black. I clicked on it with the pointer tool and hit the black swatch in the colour window and it said it had changed to 100% black - however when I opened the saved PDF the text was still in the Pantone 419C? I went back into illustrator and the text still said it was 100% black. Bizarre. I then selected the text with the text tool and guess what - it came up as Pantone 419C? Really weird. Whilst the text was highlighted I changed the Pantone 419C text to 100% black. And that fixed it. Adobe you need to fix this - as its a bad bug. Artwork could go out specced in the wrong colours. See attached video. By the way I'm using Illustrator 30.1 on Mac OS Sequoia 15.6.1

2 replies

B
Community Expert
Bobby HendersonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 12, 2026

I couldn't see the screen recording and images you uploaded. Have you tried using the Appearance panel to change the fill values on the text object?

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 11, 2026

That has been the behaviour since a very long time, but it can be confusing.

There are 2 ways to color text, at the character level (using the text selection tool (T)) and at the object level (using the pointer selection tool (V). 

The text selection tool allows you to give individual characters a different color, while the object selection tool give the text object a different color.

R
richardesignerUKAuthor
Inspiring
January 12, 2026

Hi Tom. I'm not sure you grasped my meaning. Selecting the text with the pointer tool and then changing the colour didn't actually change the colour - although the colour window registered it as changed, it didnt actually change the colour. It was only becuase I was saving the ai file as a layered PDF and then opening though Acrobat that I saw the Pantone 419C colour was still in the document - as the text that I'd just changed from Pantone 419C to 100% black. This is a massive problem!

Doug A Roberts
Community Expert
Doug A RobertsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 12, 2026

The text object may have 100K at the object level and the spot colour at the type level. Please show the appearance panel for the type object at both levels.

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